LXIV. Her handmaids tended, but she heeded not; However dear or cherish'd in their day; They changed from room to room, but all forgot: At length those eyes, which they would fain be weaning LXV. And then a slave bethought her of a harp; At the first notes, irregular and sharp, On him her flashing eyes a moment bent, Then to the wall she turn'd, as if to warp Her thoughts from sorrow through her heart re-sent ; And he begun a long low island song Of ancient days, ere tyranny grew strong. LXVI. Anon her thin wan fingers beat the wall In time to his old tune: he changed the theme, And sung of love; the fierce name struck through all Her recollection; on her flash'd the dream Of what she was, and is, if ye could call To be so, being: in a gushing stream The tears rush'd forth from her o'erclouded brain, LXVII. Short solace, vain relief!-thought came too quick, But no one ever heard her speak or shriek, Although her paroxysm drew towards its close ;Hers was a frenzy which disdain'd to rave, Even when they smote her, in the hope to save. LXVIII. Yet she betray'd at times a gleam of sense; LXIX. Twelve days and nights she wither'd thus; at last, And they who watch'd her nearest could not know The very instant, till the change that cast Her sweet face into shadow, dull and slow, Glazed o'er her eyes-the beautiful, the blackOh! to possess such lustre-and then lack! LXX. She died, but not alone: she held within But closed its little being without light, In vain the dews of heaven descend above The bleeding flower and blasted fruit of love. LXXI. Thus lived-thus died she; never more on her Shall sorrow light, or shame. She was not made Through years or moons the inner weight to bear, Which colder hearts endure till they are laid By age in earth; her days and pleasures were Brief but delightful-such as had not stay'd Long with her destiny; but she sleeps well By the sea-shore, whereon she loved to dwell. LXXII. That isle is now all desolate and bare, Its dwellings down, its tenants pass'd away: None but her own and father's grave is there, And nothing outward tells of human clay : Ye could not know where lies a thing so fair, No stone is there to show, no tongue to say What was: no dirge, except the hollow sea's, Mourns o'er the beauty of the Cyclades. LXXIII. But many a Greek maid in a loving song CAIN AND LUCIFER IN THE ABYSS OF SPACE (ACT II., SCENE I., OF 'CAIN,' 1821) Cain. I tread on air, and sink not; yet I fear To sink. Lucifer. Have faith in me, and thou shalt be Borne on the air, of which I am the prince. Cain. Can I do so without impiety? Lucifer. Believe-and sink not! doubt-and perish! thus Would run the edict of the other God, Who names me demon to his angels; they Which, knowing nought beyond their shallow senses, 20 What thou dar'st not deny-the history Of past, and present, and of future worlds. Lucifer. Dost thou not recognize The dust which formed your father? Cain. Can it be? Yon small blue circle, swinging in far ether, With an inferior circlet near it still, Which looks like that which lit our earthly night? And they who guard them? Lucifer. Of Paradise. Cain. Point me out the site How should I? As we move Like sunbeams onward, it grows small and smaller, Gathers a halo round it, like the light Which shone the roundest of the stars, when I Methinks they both, as we recede from them, Which are around us; and, as we move on, Lucifer. And if there should be Worlds greater than thine own, inhabited By greater things, and they themselves far more Though multiplied to animated atoms, All living, and all doom'd to death, and wretched, Cain. Which knew such things. Lucifer. 30 40 I should be proud of thought But if that high thought were 50 Link'd to a servile mass of matter, and Knowing such things, aspiring to such things, And science still beyond them, were chain'd down |